As I’ve said before, I can’t resist an animal-shaped candy. And when I saw these Jelly Rats in Ikea, I figured that even if these weren’t good to eat, they would be a good joke for my reptile-keeper friends. After all, why should the animals be the only ones who get to eat rats?

But after my recent surprising positive experience with the Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummy Penguin, I was more open-minded to the possibility that these might actually be good to eat. So I tried them myself.

There seem to be four flavors, of the yellow, light-green, orange and red varieties. They are fruit flavors, in a vague way. I found the red kind of nasty and the orange dull, when orange is usually my favorite fake-fruit flavor. The other two are innocuous.

The texture is pretty soft, only a little chew to it. And they’re only vague rat-shaped. Basically these are tolerable, but they’re no gummy tummy penguins.

I was also intrigued by Godis Gula Snören because, well, they are called Godis Gula Snören. I guess this is real Swedish, you couldn’t make this stuff up, right? Also, toffee flavor laces seemed exotic, if not necessarily a good idea. But I was willing to give it a try.

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I don’t know about you, but when I think Altoids, I don’t think fruit. They’ve done a good job promoting themselves as a mint company. When I saw these I thought, aren’t they just making trouble for themselves by branching out? You do one thing well – why not stick to it?

On the other hand, as I am sure I have mentioned a million times, I’m a sucker for mango. The idea of Curiously Strong Mango was something I couldn’t resist.

These are little bumpy round things, kind of like little sugar flowers, in a pale orange color. They don’t look like mangoes, and I am not absolutely sure they taste like mangoes. It’s clearly an artificial flavor, at most one that tastes more like mango than it tastes like another fruit. They’re not like the mango Hi-Chew I reviewed recently, for instance, where you taste them and aren’t surprised to read in the ingredients that there’s real mango in there somehow. They are more “Curiously Fruity,” like it says on the tin, than they are in-your-face MANGO.

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Perhaps it’s the attitude of people; relaxed, fun-loving and carefree. It could also be the weather; warm sun, long days, blooming flora, etc. More than likely it’s a combination of both. Whatever the cause, something about summer really gets me in the mood for fruity candy. Soft, hard, sticky, ooey, gooey, gummi – fruit flavored sweets tend to be a personal favorite during the long warm days.

This summer, I’ve been particularly interested in gummi fruit candy. Living in Munich, Germany fruit is always on my mind as I walk by the open-air fruit stands scattered abundantly throughout the city. Of course, I pass on the natural fruit – equally great in flavor and nutrition – and I head straight (bee line, really) for sugar… processed.

One candy I’ve become quite fond of is Storck’s Nimm2 Lach Gummi, a fruit flavored gummi treat with various gummi flavors to choose from – all nice for a warm summer sugar rush. Available for consumption are Joghurt (Yogurt), Frucht & Joghurt (Fruit & Yogurt), Frucht (Fruit), and Sauer (Sour).

Nimm2 Lach Gummi is a well known candy producer headquartered in Berlin. A product of August Storck KG, Nimm2 has been producing fruit flavored candy since 1962.

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When I recently reviewed Wiseman House Almond Toffee, I alluded to the fact that my friend Greg (still awesome) not only purchased a bag of their Almond Toffee, but also a small baton of truffles.

The truffles are actually what first gave notoriety to this small line of high-end confections. Founders Kevin and LaDonne Wenzel had a dream about settling in the country and making chocolates out of their own home. In 1996, they purchased a house designed by artist Rufus Wiseman and began creating chocolates with the intention of crafting something pure, fresh, and delicious.

Neither Kevin nor LaDonne anticipated the immense popularity of their chocolate. Originally, their intention was only to give out the chocolates to family, friends, neighbors, and the occasional person who passed through the town of Hico, Texas. That all changed when a reporter stumbled through, sampled their products, and wrote a front-page review about them for a national publication.

There are many truffles sold by Wiseman House, but the box for sale at the food and wine festival was what they call their Wild Woman Baton – a six-piece assortment of truffles made of dark chocolate.

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Continuing from where I left off, here is my next tasting of Brach’s penny candy products. This review focuses on the the fruit-flavored items they manufacture.

Brach’s Fruit Chews
Made with real juice for a fun, fruity flavor.

These are similar to a Tootsie Roll Midgee, in terms of size and shape.

Orange is reminiscent of sherbet. It has an incredibly soft chew, like biting into a marshmallow. The piece isn’t sticky, but the flavor is muted, missing the zest a true orange flavor packs.

Strawberry aims for the smell of ripe strawberries – it hits the mark spot on. The piece is chewier than the orange, but sill soft. Unfortunately, the strawberry flavor is not as evocative as the smell, further exacerbated by a waxy aftertaste.

Grape makes my nose think of grape Bubble Tape when I unwrap it. The piece is the chewiest of them all, but still soft comparatively to other chews, like a really soft Starburst. The grape flavor is artificial, tasting exactly like the grape Bubble Tape. In fact, I completely forgot these were fruit chews and not gum until I noticed the pieces had dissolved in my mouth.

My overall impression of these is that they are harmless, but avoiding providing any real substance; if there were a dish of these at a waiting room, people would only take a few.

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